


Past In the Past

by Sameshima_Shuzumi, Shusu (Sameshima_Shuzumi)



Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Food, Frozen (2013) References, Japanese Culture, M/M, Magic, Mystical Armor Bonds, References to Sengoku Jidai, Singing, Telepathy, War, Winter, food insecurity, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameshima_Shuzumi/pseuds/Sameshima_Shuzumi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameshima_Shuzumi/pseuds/Shusu
Summary: /Uh, Kujuurou's... singing./





	Past In the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my winter boys. Brought to you by a hormonal night with soft rock (!!?! all so sad ??!!) Universe does not belong to me. Unauthorized duplication and distribution prohibited. This is _magic_ , not thermodynamics. I explain this every ten years or something. It's my own personal fanon that Tenku (lit. the heavens) and Yami (lit. darkness) got crossed up and entangled so Touma could help fend off the persistent curse of corruption in Kujuurou's soul. (Nobody else is entirely okay with this, including Kujuurou.) Everything else about the armor bonds is as shown or implied in canon, or as close to canon-supported as fanon can be. Not coincidentally, I've been the main instigator of Kujuurou/Touma... my rareships are rarer than yours. You may know Touma as Rowen of Strata. Kujuurou is the original personal name of Anubisu, who you may know as Cale, Warlord of Darkness.  
>   
>   
> And if you're wondering about Naotoki (aka Naaza aka Sekhmet), he is still my fave, but there's a lot of poison in the world so he's busy, okay, take a number.

In all the years Touma had been with Kujuurou, the old warlord of winter had never expressed preferences for popular culture. Shuu blamed his perennial friendship-rivalry with Rajura. They were two old codgers together; even Kayura thought so. Granted, this was Japan. Fads were practically a primary export, to hear Touma's mom tell it. Except Rajura thought _the tea ceremony_ was a passing fad. It wasn't out of the question that Kujuurou tacitly agreed.

Oh, he shared earbuds whenever Touma insisted. He went along to every show, every club, every novelty gimmick that tickled his lover's whim... though the multitude of shadows with which to cloak his presence may have had something to do with it. He even texted Touma in the middle of class to tell him that some celebrity had done something outrageous in a gameshow, and it would be waiting on the recorder. He hated gameshows. Seiji pointed out (in painstaking full kanji, who did that?!) that it was consistent with Kujuurou's purified virtue.

('Bros,' Touma had replied. For some reason Seiji had not texted back.)

In which case, Touma would have been the first to know. Usually. Tenku had never stopped being flighty. Even more so as aspects of Darkness leached into its endless space.

Mostly Touma suspected Kujuurou really did like him, and he should get right on sucking his dick or coming home with fried squid balls. Nah, he'd do that anyway.

So in the middle of toeing off his shoes, he was stunned to hear the unmistakable strains of Kujuurou _singing_.

It was in a lower octave, and muffled by shadow as usual to spare their neighbors, yet Touma immediately placed the song, but his brain wouldn't, could not compute. He was essentially frozen in their foyer, standing on one socked foot, briefcase dangling off a wrist, one shoe in the air. Frozen. Haha. Hahaha. 

Who to ask? Who to ask? Shuu and Shin were both under a metric ton of stress with all the endless disasters. Nasuti might be too touchy about it. /Hey, Ryo, how can you tell if someone's mind-controlled?/

/What the fuck, dude!/

/Uh, Kujuurou's... singing./

/Dude./ This is why Touma loved Ryo. He could be spelunking under a mountain looking for a cave lizard, and he'd always take you seriously. With 100% intensity. /When's the last time he did that? Was that karaoke—/

Touma sent pure irritation down the armor-link. /We don't speak of that night!/

/That totally happened,/ Ryo wheedled, his grin huge. Touma hated Ryo.

Meanwhile, the shoe literally dropped. The singing stopped. /Oh shit./

/Hey, he's done it before. It can't be that unusual./ Warm reassurance.

Kujuurou rounded the corner. No red eyes or eerie ghostly ooze. Not that Tenku was telling him _anything_ , thanks a fucking lot, pal!

Ryo prodded. /What was he singing, anyway?/

Hastily Touma sent: /It's probably nothing, Kayura says not to worry unless it's creepy chanting, see ya!/

Because as they stared at each other, it was dawning on them that he'd heard that, and Kujuurou knew he'd heard that. They were at a tragic impasse.

Kujuurou broke first. He collected Touma's briefcase. Belatedly Touma registered the gigantic meat cleaver in his hand. Awesome, soup and tempura for dinner. Then he realized that the warm tug between his eyes wasn't his headband, because he come from teaching and not a baseball game — it was Yami. The armor of darkness.

As the cool curl of shadow followed that familiar silhouette, Touma was towed after, moving fast as a breath. In a moment he was draped over his lover's shoulders, stance wide and weighing nothing at all. He wound an arm across his chest, tight as a scabbard strap.

"I didn't know you liked _Frozen_ ," he said.

A ripple moved through Kujuurou, body and soul alike. Touma could've teased him. How thematic. How cool that he wasn't too old for Disney. How his singing voice sent shivers down his spine.

Except Yami had been unambiguous. Clear and overwhelming as the deepest night, and for all the years that Touma had carried that burden, he'd yet to get used to that sudden nightfall.

"It was on that station you like," admitted Kujuurou. Admitting that he'd left it on well beyond the bounds of his annoyance. Because it was Touma's favorite station of the moment.

That was all Touma was getting... for now. He huffed, and let him go. Considerately, he sent Ryo an all-clear, and shut the bonds down.

All but one. That one was woven into his soul.

They finished chopping and prepping together. There was a... lack of violence in Kujuurou's aura, which was always unusual when there were blades involved. Touma didn't comment, only got to heating everything up.

It was funny how being with Kujuurou had taught him patience.

The song in question shouldn't have been a surprise. It was a typical power ballad for an all-ages musical. And _power_ was what their armors felt like. The others had but one armor to bear. He and Kujuurou's entanglement bestowed the full breadth of already unlimited elementals: the vastness of the cosmos, the ubiquitous darkness. Their burdens were shared, but so was the full might of the stars. The crushing cold of winter.

Except Touma suspected there was more to it than that. The song wasn't only about power. And what Yami had shown him had been...

At the table, he turned up the heating element and huddled next to Kujuurou. Not like anyone was around to scold them for table manners. They ate quickly, like always, shoulder-to-shoulder, ankles tangled.

Two-thirds down the soup bowl, Kujuurou spoke. "The year before Arago, we were being starved out by the Date."

Good thing the bonds were closed. Seiji had _issues_ , few of their edges dulled down now that he was head of the Date clan. 

And it hadn't been hundreds of years ago for Kujuurou. Damn Arago.

"...allies of the Date. Waited us out. Couldn't feel the hunger anymore," he said into his broth. "Too cold."

Touma tried not to choke on his greens and mushrooms. His eyes burned. The worst part of the Warring Period was that it was so long ago. He couldn't do anything about it. And before they'd been made into a demon's warlords... they had all been incredibly young.

Tenku was here now, and with one firm yank, Touma absorbed the darkness until by sheer force of will the cold lost contact with Kujuurou.

His lover skipped the chastising at the tremendous risk of that favor. Instead he wrapped his arm around Touma's catlike curl, sharing in his sudden warmth.

"When the armors came for us," Kujuurou said, "It felt like freedom. No more watching— Freezing. Starving. No rules... except our masters'. It wasn't until later that I realized. We were fed nothing. We met no corpses because we commanded ghosts."

"You were lonely," Touma ventured.

Kujuurou nodded. His hold was like iron bands. "We all were. Arago had us set against each other, and we were... most of us were too blind to see it." He turned his head. His scent was smoky and strong. Touma knew he smelled like stardust, clear and piercing. Kujuurou's breath was warm, the furthest thing from a corpse, and Touma was glad.

"When Arago shattered, all the chains of his dominion went with him. That was the first time I'd felt real freedom. That girl in the song... the cold was no friend of mine. It would never betray me. But I'd never be free of it.

"Until you," said Kujuurou, and Touma pushed his bowl away and put icy palms on his face and kissed him, power zinging between them like bursts of comet-frost. 

"Doesn't bother me anyway," breathed Touma.

"There will be no duet," said Kujuurou, with a glint of bared teeth. He squeezed Touma when he whined. "Don't you remember karaoke night?"

"Didn't happen." Touma turned in place, enveloping him with limbs and corded muscle and a seat upon his lap, chest to chest. If Yami had manifested, he'd have been stabbed in the heart; that wouldn't hold back his embrace. He could picture Kujuurou, grim as a wolf, fighting beside the rest of his clan in the siege of winter, swords out so they wouldn't freeze in their scabbards, knots of people trying not to die. It was more than Kujuurou usually spoke of, and abruptly Touma realized that he had wanted to spare him the vivid experience of the bond.

That was... Sometimes Touma floated above the city's aircraft warning lights and counted the wheeling stars. It was like that.

"You don't even know what that song's from, do you?" Touma said. He started wriggling.

"Touma," said Kujuurou warningly. He reached for the table while Touma was fishing in his pockets, came back with a bowl of sake. Touma came up with the phone. He regarded the tip of Touma's pink tongue as he tapped away. The bowl rose between them, and Kujuurou blew across its placid surface, his breath steaming where Tenku no Touma had turned the liquor cold.

Touma's dark eyes turned blue again. He discovered the sake under his nose, took a sip, and the moment broke, he glommed on and braced the phone on Kujuurou's upper back while he leaned over his shoulder. Unperturbed, Kujuurou was still as a statue while Touma squirmed, nursing his sake with his arm tight around his lover.

"You're not buying stuffed animals." Kujuurou paused. "Or snowmen."

"There's a show on ice," Touma said.

"...my lady might like that."

"You'd come with us?" Touma raised a brow. He and Kayura _and_ a crowd of hyped up kids? He nuzzled at Kujuurou's nape.

"In the dark? I can block out your squabbling."

At least he and Kayura didn't 'squabble' with two swords and shuriken. 

Primary colors bounced off his face as he scrolled for tickets. Now that Touma thought of it, this was pretty funny. Warlord of _Winter_ and all. Oh no, the other warlords could never know. He might be able to bribe Kayura into keeping her mouth shut, mostly because she liked Kujuurou, gods, this was the problem with being essentially _immortal_ , you'd never live it down...!

"It's mostly songs," whispered Touma. He waved the bright lit phone.

Then it occurred to Touma that Kujuurou was watching him, effortlessly lifting his whole body while Touma had locked his legs around without thinking, like he was geared to fuck Touma till he was screaming, and beyond. Their armors were excellent at silencing. Touma reared back a bit, eyes crossing, his nose brushing the scar under Kujuurou's steady stare.

"You'll... sing?" he said. Their souls rang out like a single snow-covered bell, Kujuurou's lower incisors catching on Touma's lip, cool dusk catching on that spark of amusement, thrumming back and forth in the dark where there would never be armor between them.

Kujuurou showed him the song. Slow as starlight, Touma caught up.


End file.
